WALTHAM, Mass.—PerkinElmer Inc. has entered into an assay development and sample testing collaboration with BioLegend, a San Diego-based company providing immunological reagents to biomedical research communities.

Under the agreement, BioLegend will offer immunoassay development and bioanalytical testing based on PerkinElmer's "no-wash," homogenous bead-based AlphaLISA assay technology. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

According to Dr. Martina Bielefeld-Sevigny, vice president and general manager, Drug Discovery and Research Reagents, Bio-discovery, PerkinElmer, there were several factors that made BioLegend an attractive partner for PerkinElmer.

"The PerkinElmer and BioLegend collaboration is particularly relevant to the academic market. BioLegend is known for its strong ties to academia, which serves to complement PerkinElmer's existing reach in academic research labs," says Bielefeld-Sevignyy. "Additionally, BioLegend's antibody content was a factor in deciding to collaborate, given that it can be leveraged to develop niche custom assays based on PerkinElmer's AlphaLISA 'no-wash' technology."

AlphaLISA comprises highly sensitive and quantitative assays with broader ranges than standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), saving time in laboratory workflows and eliminating labor-intensive wash steps that are difficult to automate.
These assay development and testing services integrate BioLegend's strong position in high quality antibody production and assay development capabilities with PerkinElmer's unique technology and instrumentation.

The collaboration provides scientists with broader access to the AlphaLISA technology and offers assays with extremely high detection sensitivities, currently very difficult to achieve with many existing ELISA assays. Furthermore, the advantages of AlphaLISA technology allow for easy integration into automated high-throughput testing systems, including the JANUS liquid handling system from PerkinElmer.

Bielefeld-Sevigny says the collaboration fits well into PerkinElmer's continuing strategy to bring the benefits of AlphaLISA's "no-wash" technology further into the academic market segment.

"As AlphaLISA is intended to enable the highly sensitive detection of biomolecules and biomolecular interactions while eliminating cumbersome wash steps, academic researchers can measure even very low affinity interactions," she says. "The technology's sensitivity and homogeneity also enables savings in precious sample and antibodies usage."

According to Brad Kraft, president of BioLegend, the future of high-throughput assays lies in an increased need for automation.

"Many current immunological assay platforms have major drawbacks when it comes to meeting requirements for automation in the lab," adds Kraft. "We feel this collaboration with PerkinElmer is therefore a timely and highly promising advance that gives researchers greater understanding of basic disease biology and pathobiology, particularly when applied to biomarker assays."

Dr. Richard M. Eglen, president of Bio-Discovery at PerkinElmer, notes that the company remains committed to extending the benefits of its proprietary AlphaLISA platform to researchers globally, across pharma, biotech and academic laboratories.

"Combining PerkinElmer's technologies with BioLegend's unique immunoassay development capabilities enables scientists to benefit from reduced barriers to discovery such as time or resource constraints," he notes.

As the collaboration unfolds, Bielefeld-Sevigny points out that there will ultimately be one true measure of success.

"There are a number of criteria that will be measured throughout the course of the collaboration, but one key goal is to generate new customer projects through the combination of PerkinElmer technology and BioLegend custom assay development services," she says.